Amy Mihaljevic /// Part 1 /// 308 | Forensic Files

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crime [Music] Friday October 27th 1989 Bay Village Ohio this should have been just a normal
typical Friday the kids go off to school the parents go to work when everyone gets home we can start our
weekend but on this Friday not everyone will come home 10-year-old Amy mahalic went to
school she was in the fifth grade at Bay Village Middle School after school she walked with
friends to the Bay Village shopping plaza Amy was last seen that day by two of her
peers they would later report that they saw Amy mahalic standing outside of the Baskin Robins ice cream
shop Amy was approached by a man in his early 30s standing about 5' 8 to 5' 10 in tall
with dark hair and maybe a bald spot on the top of his head one witness said the man was wearing a
tan jacket and might have been wearing glasses but could not be sure the man walked right up to Amy
leaned down and he said something to her he placed his hand on Amy's back and led her
away this man walked right up to her spoke to her and then took her no one who saw the man with Amy knew
who he was and to this day we don't know who he is but we do know that he is a very very
evil [Music] man [Music] I want to jump right into a very detailed timeline now there are pretty
good timelines out there regarding Amy's case and what went on the day she went missing the lake Eerie murders
documentary does a pretty good one but the best timeline I believe is found in James renner's book Amy my search for
her killer there's a chapter in there called minute by minute and this chapter is by far the most detailed account of
the day that Amy was taken I'm not going to read the minute-by-minute chapter but
most of the following is ripped right from the pages of renner's very good book before we get into this timeline
it's important to note a few things one Amy is in the fifth grade and her older brother Jason is in the seventh grade
they both attend Bay Village Middle School now Bay Village is a very nice small town it's what I would call like a
it's got a suburb feel to it it's upper middle class and at one time it was listed as one of the safest cities
probably in the nation now October 27th 1989 the day Amy was taken it was a particularly warm day that day in Bay
Village a little after 6:00 a.m. Amy woke up and dressed herself she picked out green pants and a pale green
sweatshirt with lavender trim she slipped on her favorite earring these are silhouettes of horse heads
rendered in turquoise mounted on gold studs on the way out the door she put on a white windbreaker she slipped on a
pair of black riding boots laced up the front she grabbed her blue denim book bag with red piping around her
shoulders outside she climbed onto her blue antique bike and met up with two friends Kristen and Katie from down the
road the three Road together to Bay Village Middle School Amy was seated at her desk in Mrs Stewart's classroom
before the bell rang at 7:50 a.m. the students attended an assembly before lunch that day at the assembly
they listened to police officer Mark spettel talk about safety and stranger danger at lunch Amy ate spaghetti in the
school cafeteria classes LED out that day at 2:10 p.m. for the fifth graders normally
Amy would get on her bike and ride home but this day she left the bike behind instead asking a friend her name's
Olivia if she could walk with her the two are walking but this is not in the direction of Amy's home in fact Olivia
mentions to Amy You Never Walk This Way to which Amy replies I'm meeting a friend or I'm meeting a family friend
which those comments are extremely different but it has been reported both ways when
the two were approaching the Bay Village Square shopping center Amy informed Olivia that the shopping center was her
destination and then the two-p parted ways there a classmate of Amy's named Haley then saw Amy walk toward a black
van but then Amy stopped stepped away and walked toward the Baskin Robins store Amy did not go into the ice cream
shop she stood outside swinging around the pole keeping her head down apparently lost in
thought around 2:45 p.m. a girl named Maddie was near the Baskin Robins she saw Amy and she saw A well-dressed man
in a beige or tan jacket walk up to Amy he leaned forward said something to Amy put his hand on her back and led Amy
away at that time Maddie assumed this was Amy's dad at 300 p.m. Amy's brother Jason arrived home now this is one of
those really sad lesser known moments in this case Jason later says that his intentions after school that day were to
go to the shopping plaza he did not intend on going to the shopping plaza because he knew that Amy was there in
fact he had no idea that she would be there he was going to go there just because so many of the other kids would
go there after school mhm however on his way Jason spotted some boys that were older than him and these boys often
picked on Jason and some of the other kids so seeing these boys Jason decides to go home instead now this is why I say
this is a really sad moment and I know that I can tell from listening to Jason talk about his sister's case and talk
about the events of that day he holds a lot of guilt regarding this decision because there's got to be a small part
of him that wonders and thinks hey had I gone to the shopping plaza that day and
seen my little sister and said you know what are you doing here this whole thing
may have been prevented yeah if Amy was hanging out with her brother maybe this perpetrator wouldn't come up to Amy or
if he did that Jason would have been able to identify this individual yeah and the thing to note here that I think
is very important there's a lot of kids coming from the school going to this shopping center okay and the whoever
this offender is when they approached Amy even though there are a lot of other people around a lot of kids Amy is by
herself at this time right and as you said had the brother been standing right next to her or interacting with her this
person may have thought this is not the opportunity that he was looking for well
and to be clear the other kids are there for for a different agenda they're there
to be at the Basin Robbins or to be hanging out Amy is there which we know cuz she told her friend she is there to
meet somebody yeah and I want to be clear I don't think that Jason has should have any guilt regarding this
decision that he made he made this decision based off of these older boys being real jerks and you know a lot of
us have been there where we've been sidetracked or stepped away from something we wanted to do because people
we don't enjoy being around or people that could be harmful to ourselves are are there so that brings us to about 300
p.m. on the timeline yeah Jason arrives home from school and at this time he calls his mother Margaret she's at work
now it was common for both Amy and Jason to call her once they got home from school Jason tells his mom that Amy is
not at the house now this does raise some alarms for Margaret but just just a few minutes
later after Jason called Amy then called Margaret Margaret assuming Amy was calling from home at the time Amy tells
her mother that she stayed after school for choir auditions later Margaret said Amy seemed off as if she was rushing the
conversation and not her typically talkative self Margaret a little rattled by the
whole situation does decide to leave work a little early that day she packs up her things for the weekend and leaves
work Margaret arrives home pulling into their driveway on Winford Drive sometime
between 4: and 4:30 p.m. Jason is quick to point out to his mother that Amy still has not come home the maternal
Instinct kicks in Margaret rushed to the Middle School the first thing she notices is Amy's bike is still in the
bike rack Margaret tried to get into the school but no luck so she jumped in her
car and drove straight to the police station now we should also note the layout of Bay Village here at this time
in 1989 the middle school is just right down the street from the shopping center
and pretty much right across the street from the shopping center we have the police station so very quickly the she's
able to arrive at the school notices the bike can't get access to the school drives to the police station this stuff
is all happening very quickly once she gets to the police station Amy's mom's going to report her missing right away
the officer that took the report this is Barbara slpi this good officer did not waste
time treating Amy as a runaway which was the standard protocol at the time she believed Margaret and Margaret's fear
and somehow she knew that this was the real deal so a call went out to officers and to surrounding towns this at 5:58
p.m. the call included an incomplete description of Amy but at this time we have officers in Bay Village and
officers in surrounding towns looking for the missing little girl Mark mahalic unaware of the growing storm at the home
front he arrived home from work at 6:30 p.m. to find his family in a panic and Amy gone yeah didn't he work at a car
dealership he worked for Buick at the time and and was more involved than just a singular dealership okay Mark spent
the rest of the evening scouring Bay Village with a friend he drove his car up and down every street this between
his house and Holly Hill Farms which is important to the family because Holly Hill Farms is where Amy would ride
horses this was a big-time hobby of hers he also drove between their home and the
school and Huntington Park and he walked through Ravines in the woods calling his
daughter's name at 11:00 p.m. thanks to the effort eorts of Jean Sabo she was the mother of one of Amy's closest
friends and she was on the PTA at Amy school she took a picture that she had of Amy her school picture to the local
news channels and then they broadcast Amy's picture with her name requesting help or information regarding the
missing little girl Amy was described as 5' 10 in tall and weighing around 90 lb
with shoulder length dark blonde hair we need to get to one very important aspect
about this case and information that we know that could help us find who took Amy now it was not immediate it was not
right away that the authorities learned that there was previous interaction between the abductor and Amy
mahalic what they do learn from talking to Amy's friends so some of her classmates told police that Amy had said
she was going to the shopping center for a gift for her mother with a stranger who claimed to be a friend of the family
now from the local newspaper here I'll read this Amy was last seen Alive by a classmate in the afternoon of October
27th talking to a man outside the Bay Village Square shopping center her classmates told police Amy had said she
was going shopping for a gift for her mother with a stranger who claimed to be a friend of the family a neighbor told
police that Amy had received a telephone call at her home before her disappearance from a man claiming to be
a friend of Amy's mother Margaret mahalic the neighbor said the man told Amy her mother had received a job
promotion and invited the girl on a secret shopping trip to get Mrs mahalic a present Mrs mahalic has said she was
not promoted at her work at the time Margaret mahalic is working at the trading times
this could have been a bit confusing for Amy okay there are there are things in this case where the abductor I believe
got lucky on some things the first being this Amy's mother did not receive a promotion but at some point not too long
before this abduction Margaret went from part-time to full-time now Amy was a very smart young girl girl but I could
see her assuming that that might be a promotion this adding to the credibility of the stranger that's calling on Amy's
behalf you know your mother recently received a promotion this would feel to Amy that maybe this person is who he
says he is he's a friend of my mother's cuz he knew that she is now working full-time yeah so that's a detail that
maybe he just got lucky on or is it a detail that leads somebody to believe that he actually knew the mother correct
yeah that and that's the way that they're going to go with the investigation at that time so when she's
First missing they're talking to all of her friends and people at the school and
people at the shopping center as soon as they find out this detail they being the
authorities find out the detail about the phone call now they're really looking into Margaret mahalic anybody that she
worked with anybody that she knew as well as Mark mahalic same thing people he worked with people that he knew and
really anybody that knew the family or people in the neighborhood this is a very interesting aspect to this case and
I think that this is why one of the reasons why this case has remained somewhat in the spotlight especially for
northeastern Ohio for so many years because of there there are a lot of abductions and a lot of missing persons
cases where somebody just simp simply vanishes and what I mean by that is there's no eyewitnesses there's not much
of a story as to when they were last seen or who they were seen with yeah there's not a story leading up to them
going missing or a story afterwards so here we have not only do we have eyewitnesses who saw a man with Amy at
the shopping center now we have a situation where he was unlucky because Amy didn't keep this a secret she did
tell some of her friends hey I'm meeting a friend and I've received these phone calls now there is some debate if it was
one call or multiple calls or how many calls it would have been personally I believe there was probably more than one
call but one thing that leaves this case and I think intrigues people about this
case is the aspect of the phone call itself this is what you have when you have a case with a little meat on the
bone there's there's something to chew on here there's something to ponder this could be an angle that could lead you to
the right suspect now there were other calls made to other girls this before Amy went missing yeah it's been reported
a whole bunch of different ways that uh there were multiple calls placed to girls that lived in northstead Falls
which is not terribly far from Bay Village but it's not terribly close either through the years I've really
paid attention to the reports about these phone calls because I think personally I think that these calls are
connected to Amy's case right now what I have seen as far as Bay Village Law Enforcement and the FBI is
concerned they have stated on the record that they believe two calls two calls to
two different girls are probably connected to Amy's situation keep in mind this is
1989 it was not uncommon for people to crank call people back then it was not uncommon for pervert s to pick up the
phone and just randomly dial somebody well and also how many girls came forward afterwards saying oh I got a
call but but never received a call possibly but what we do have on record is the law enforcement telling us that
out of all of these people that came forward we believe that two of these are probably connected so not all of them
but probably two of them to which the reason why I think they would know that they were connected is I believe the
caller probably said similar things to these girls to what Amy told her friends was said to her that's your way to
connect these two now in those two situations luckily those two girls decided to hang up on this man and not
meet him somewhere again this goes back to where I think Amy got fooled she got tricked because this guy got lucky your
mom received a promotion we know she went from part-time to full-time I think this was perceived by Amy to be that
promotion that he was talking about so there were other calls made now many years later and and I've followed this
case since 1989 so I'm always very intrigued when I find out some new information it wasn't until last year
and this was through Bill Huffman and through James rener that I learned a small detail about that phone call it
sounds to me like Amy was pretty thorough and pretty detailed when she told these two friends about the phone
calls because she stated we know this little fact here this little detail here right that the caller the man told Amy
that we have4 or $45 to spend on your mother's gift and by the way because you're helping me and you're helping us
out whatever's left over after we purchased the gift gift you can just keep or we'll buy something for you
right so that's an interesting little detail the problem with this case and the problem with the perception of this
case has always been that so many people immediately jump out of their chair and
go well why the hell wouldn't they just law enforcement just figure out who the caller was by the call log to the house
to Amy's house look for the number that doesn't fit or look for all the incoming
calls that were received leading up to her abduction and Trace Trace down those phone numbers to addresses and to
individuals and interview those individuals the problem with that scenario is at the time police's hands
were a bit tied on this and getting you they just couldn't get that type of information what we learn is basically
the the phone records that are kept by the phone companies at that time are very basic right very simple if it's a
longdistance call it is build differently than if it's a local call so therefore the phone company keeps track
of all of the long-distance calls going in and out however they don't keep track
of local calls going in and out because they're not build in that same manner there's no reason for them to keep that
record but what that does tell us is that the call or calls that Amy received came from the same area code
where she lived but an area code is pretty large and probably larger back then covering a larger radius back then
than today yeah true so back then the chief of police for Bay Village was William goo and I'm I'm hoping I say his
name right but in the newspapers he stated that the two calls that they believe could be connected to Amy's case
took place in March and April of 1989 here's an interesting thing to ponder we know that the call to Amy was
local so if law enforcement firmly believed that these two calls out of all the tips they received about other
possible calls if these two calls were connected to Amy's case you damn well better believe that they tried to track
down that information the same way that they tried to track down the phone call information regarding Amy's calls so
what we can gather from that is that wherever these two calls that they believe were connected to Amy's
case were located the individuals that were receive these calls we can figure out from there that those must have been
local calls as well because they were unable to track down the offender based off of that
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[Music] all right cheers mates let's get back to the Amy mahalic case cheers to you
Captain right right through the glass there on the morning of February 8th 1990 Janet seabold is out enjoying her
daily early morning jog she was maybe a from her house jogging along County Road
1181 in Ashlin County this spot is 46.8 miles from the Bay Village shopping center where Amy was last seen that
morning Janet spotted something maybe 20 ft off the west side of the road mind you for those new to this case this area
is very rural these are large Farmland properties whatever Janet thought it was that she was seeing it was enough to
grab her attention so much so that she stopped jogging and walked toward the object taking very slow steps soon Janet
got close enough to make out that she was looking at the motionless body of a human lying face down in the mud Janet
ran to the nearest home and pounded on the door and Patricia kid opened up the door so when Patricia opens up the door
Janet is on the front porch and is crying uncontrollably what she says is I think I found a body called the police
why did it have to be me that found it yeah I couldn't imagine how devastating that would be especially to find the
body of a child yeah and I believe that Janet was aware of you know judging by the size of what she was looking at she
probably knew that it was a child they did call the police and the police arrived very quickly on the scene the
very sad thing here too is Amy's case was so well known to the public into the surrounding areas that even though this
little area this Farmland Community that's 48 mil away from where she was last seen the local authorities there
were aware of a missing girl and actually they were looking for a potential body in different locations of
their County leading up to this so when they get this call it's kind of one of those situations where they're
like [ __ ] we might know without even being there what we're actually responding
to and everybody's looking for this little girl and we may have found her dead in our County and they were able to
confirm that probably very quickly on site but they confirmed it through dental records later that day so it was
confirmed that what everyone suspected they had found the body that belonged to Amy mahalic does the autopsy give us any
clues or any information it does give us some information I'm going to read from
Emily Thompson's book unsolved Child Murders she has a chapter in there on Amy mahalic and it reads the pathologist
had even more disturbing news for Margaret and Mark mahalic not only did he confirm that Amy had been murdered
but she had been brutally stabbed in the neck three times and blood Legend over the head with a heavy object it was a
violent death for a young child now the autopsy report was never released to the
public but this author Emily states that she was able in her research to obtain a
copy from the Ashlin County coroner's office and she goes on to say that when Amy's body was found she was fully
clothed except for her shoes her genitalia showed no signs of trauma however a spot of blood was discovered
in her underwear the stab wounds to the neck had severed the cored artery leading to her death there was also a
postmortem stab wound to her chest disturbingly her nails were irregularly broken suggesting that she had attempted
to defend herself from the man who had so brutally killed her her body was in an advanc state of decomposition
indicating that she had been dead for several months so most likely she was killed closer to the abduction date than
the date that she was found yes that's the way that it would appear judging by those statements in uh Emily Thompson's
book I do want to further that information a little bit because James rener has said that he was able to see
the autopsy report and I I can't remember if he had to go through from memory later when he spoke about it or
if he was able to take notes because you've seen Captain you've seen zodiac remember when Robert Grey Smith is is
trying to see some of the case File from one of the murders in the in the Zodiac
murders yeah and they're like yeah we'll let you look at it but you got to go in
there with nothing you know we can't have you um jotting this stuff down or making copies or anything like that you
got you can go in there and take a a quick look at it and you're going to have to remember whatever you see or
read that's actually more common than than people think yeah so rener has said publicly I believe it was on his website
he stated that you know this was a big moment for him because it was a big battle for him to win to see this
autopsy report it was something he was trying to view for quite some time before he was actually allowed to look
at it after viewing it he did say you know there are things in there that I'm just going to keep to myself and I have
absolutely zero problem with that we have covered cases where they are open cases and we've come across some
information or seen some things and had to make the decision it's in the best interest of the investigation of the
open investigation that some of this information is not widely known isn't public right but it still makes you
curious when you hear something like that especially with a guy like James rener that is so open about his
investigations on cases well and especially this case yeah you know maybe um brutally honest we should say when it
comes to Amy's case and I think that's just because he he like so many of the rest of us this is an important case to
to him personally and he like so many of us want to see this thing solved I want
to go into some things here because there's always been the question of was Amy sexually assault Ed and from the
statement that we just read you can't really gather it doesn't sound like she was raped and and I I'm sorry to use
these these terrible words and descriptions but this is where we are yeah there are indications that there
was some form of sexual assault one being that when they found her remember that she is fully clothed
and I just used uh air quotes there but the underwear that she was wearing when she was found was inside out now this
could have just been happen stance could have just been an accident or whatever but law enforcement believes that this
is an indication that she may have been redressed at some point and then we further that with what Emily Thompson
says in her book about there being blood inside the underwear Amy's blood well the
injuries that occurred that led to her death very likely would not have placed blood
inside the underwear so it's another indication that at some point during whatever assault
occurred that she was in a state of undress or partially undressed and to further that thought I
have never in all my years of following this case I've never heard an investigator say anything other than the
following we can't think of any other reason why somebody would have taken her when when
asked specifically was she sexually assaulted or raped they said we can't there there's things to indicate that we
can't prove it we can't say 100% but we believe some type of assault happened based off of the information we can see
but furthermore we can't find any other motivation for the abduction in the first place and we've talked about it
before it's sad that we live in a world that we we can walk down the street zero
motive if we don't have money on us or if somebody doesn't dislike us but females walk around with a motive on
them 24/7 with all these creepos out there and and so yeah I mean it doesn't make
any sense why somebody would take her again unless you go with the angle that this person was actually close to the
family and it's some kind of Revenge for some reason but if they don't have any evidence that are
pointing them into the direction of somebody that actually knew the family or somebody that was mad at the family
the mother or father then what other motive would there be mhm and if you believe that the other two phone calls
to the other girls are in fact connected we can't say 100% right but if you believe those to be connected then that
takes away from r as well well just even if there's just one call that's connected mhm you know
um it's difficult though too because there's no trauma in that area but you could have a situation where you know
it's a stretch but you know there's medical conditions like micr penises and things like that that might not actually
leave trauma well and the other thing that you have to wonder I mean it was 100 days 100 or so days after the
abduction that the B's found so we have months of decomposition going on what is
lost through that time remember we talked about when we watched the Adnan Sayed uh special on HBO they titled one
of them time is the killer yeah again we have a situation here time is the killer
in this case because it's the killer of evidence that could have been on or around her body all this decomposition
takes place again this is another situation where I really feel that this offender is not like super sophisticated
this is not a handable Lector type where he's just so much more brilliant than the law law enforcement officers and
investigators working the case this is another situation where I believe that he again got lucky that I believe that
this body there there is reason to believe that the body was very likely there for quite some time and I mean in
the field and the thing that we also should point out here too is there has never been an investigator who has
visited that dump site that recovered her body that day that has said we believe she was killed here everybody
has always said the amount of blood the amount of of blood from that attack she had to have been killed elsewhere and
then later transported to that location now rener as well as some others have stated that there was a a sapling or
some type of plant growth that had grown through one of the articles of clothing
that Amy was wearing they can't say for certain how long it would have taken that that plant
growth to protrude and go through the clothing but what they can say is that is an indication that she was in that
field for a long time before being discovered now what's Your Gut Feeling like if you had to give it a percentage
of motive do you have a percentage of what you think it was you know the motive being rape oh the to me 100% I I
cannot I agree I it's and even if even if the guy doing some kind of sexual assault it it's rape that's what it is
this idea of you know whatever happened even if there wasn't penetration or whatever that it's it's it's rape that's
what it is and and and the amount of fear that she had to go through is I mean it's horrible to think of from
Emily Thompson's book The the broken fingernails Amy's broken fingernails pointing out that she defended
herself I I've always believed that she fought back and I've always believed that the motivation for the abduction
was sexual in nature I don't I don't where I have a break in the case in the motive of the offender is
I I'm unable to determine or to decide if the killer if the abductor knew in advance that he was going to kill the
victim I've always kind of believed that the motivation was sexual and that the killing may have happened because she
fought back and that maybe that was not the intention of the abductor now obviously we will never know that until
this offender is apprehended and if they choose to tell us what their motives and
motivations were but that's always been my thought 100% this was a sexually motivated crime the other thing that
comes into question here is not only how long was the body in the field but how long was Amy kept alive if in fact the
motivation for the abduction was sexual in nature and this offender went to all of these high-risk activities to to
abduct her it's thought that he would want to have spent some time with her so one
thing that we should point out based off of the autopsy information is that at some point Amy consumed what is I
believe it's listed as a soy based protein product now that doesn't tell us exactly what she consumed obviously
right and again that might lead towards some of the composition that took place but there's been a lot of speculation on
this of what it could have been that she could have consumed the people that think that she
may have been killed very quickly after the abduction they point to the fact that she did have lunch at school that
day and according to renner's book it was spaghetti there have been other people that have suggested that this
type of product that we found we find this to be very similar to to what you might find on pepperoni pizza and if
that's the case then she consumed another meal after the abduction as far as we know other people have pointed out
that it could have been from something like Chinese food so there there's a lot of thought there and a lot of
speculation on how long she was alive and captive but we have a pretty good idea of what she left school with like
what she was wearing very good very descriptive I mean from everything to her outfit to her jacket to her book bag
uh some of the contents of her book bag the type of shoes she was wearing she was wearing writing boots as well as the
earrings that she was wearing that is a huge factor in this case and I've actually always believed
that this would be what would find and hang the killer okay because some of these items that she left her home with
that day the day she was taken some of these items have never been they weren't recovered with her body and they've
never been found since then so let's go through that again real quick she was wearing
a to to simplify it she was wearing a green jogging outfit a white nylon jacket and black ankle boots uh these
are decorated boots with silver studs and she had on those turquoise earrings these these earrings are shaped like a
HSE head uh she was also carrying a black leather folder decorated with the Buick three Chevron logo with the words
best inclass embroidered on the front so what we need to point out here where I said earlier she was found fully clothed
and I and I said I'm using air quotes there what was not found is her white nylon jacket her book bag the earring
the writing boots and the folder the Buick folder those items were never found now what is interesting I think it
was in 1997 it was years years after the abduction in the murder of Amy mahalic until they released that information you
know they knew at the time these items are all missing the killer either kept them on purpose or kept them on accident
or they they were discarded of Elsewhere so the boots are missing and the earrings are missing boots earrings
folder book bag uh and the nylon jacket so when the when the police and FBI present this
information to the public they come out and they say look these earrings were missing this folder was missing the
boots are missing what they purposely left out was the nylon jacket and the book bag right and it was it was Bill
Huffman that asked the chief of police the current chief of police why did you not include that back in if it was 97
back in 97 When You released that information to the public and spel says that that's for
good reason you don't want to muddy the waters too much here because the nylon jacket that she was wearing is super
common there's thousands of them the book bag that is missing it's very again common there's thousands of them it's
not unique it's not specific to Amy what is unique and specific to Amy are these
earrings these are like almost one of A- kind earrings the boots they're riding boots uh anybody that rides horses they
know that there's there are commonly made boots mass-produced boots and then there are there are also some boots that
are not common that are one-offs that are made special these this would be a a very uncommon
item especially for a young girl you would expect most to be wearing you know tennis shoes right but this makes me
think that the person that took her knew that these items were indicators and what I mean by that
is maybe they worked at the place that she took writing lessons and so by taking these items items away maybe they
would not know that she was wearing them that day but if if she was seen with that that maybe that would be a clue to
lead them back to somebody does that make sense Yeah well yeah and the other thing too that was missing is that black
leather folder decorated with the Buick three Chevron logo and the words best in
class right this is embroidered this is not you know Trapper Keeper this is not go to to Kroger or
to CVS and pick up just any general folder for my child to take to school right this is a very specific very
unique folder this was actually something that was made by Buick remember Mark is employed by Buick at
the time this is something he received at work there's not a lot of them it's awfully fancy and he gives it to his
daughter to use for school so the thing that the police pointed out when they come out with this news
conference is they say everyone out there look at these items look at the earrings look at the writing boots look
at the black folder any of these items if you know someone that has one two or all three of
these items we want to talk to you because we want to talk to them that was something that I I
personally thought at the time when they came out with that that information I thought
it might not be long it might not be long until they find out who killed Amy but these items are obviously items that
are easily to discard but you also just wonder with the weird connection with this case if if this person was obsessed
with Amy on some level that you would I would assume that they would keep these items at least a few of them or yeah or
maybe even just one it's not terribly uncommon one for particularly serial killers and I don't
know that we are dealing with a serial killer here it could be some type of Serial
offender but it's not uncommon for them to keep trophies or ways of remembering their victim or
victims so that's one possibility that that the Killer is actually you know with with thought and
effort hanging on to these items that is a possibility and like you said it's also a possibility that they
transported the body and then just discarded of these items simply by throwing them in the trash right and
maybe they also thought that this would be a way to identify her faster yeah and the thing too is see
that I thought about that for a long time and question that myself I really think that I don't see any effort made
on behalf of the killer to to slow down identifying the body of being that of Amy mahalic you know we don't have
fingers removed the head removed we don't have the body being buried right but we have a long period of
decomposition so you wonder if she was somewhere else he let her sit there long enough so the decomposition process is
further along and then he discards of her right but it I mean it was no trouble to
identify it the body as being hers right right fair enough personally I I think that if there was if what they were
worried about her being identified as Amy mahalic as the victim that he abducted if that was truly what they
were worried about I think that this individual would have buried her somewhere and
unfortunately well fortunately he did not because unfortunately had he done that there's a chance she
may have never been found and then that's a whole new set of problems and issues for the case the
other thing too that I I should point out is and I think this is a big reason why not only do you know anybody that
has these items that were missing from Amy not only does that mean the killer but could the killer have give given any
of these items away right you know when we talked about the River Killer Gary Ridgeway he he'd get these victims he
would take jewelry or other small items from them and he would sell them at his garage sales or give them to co-workers
or to his wife and say hey I bought you something or hey I found something for you well and we both believe that these
are sexually motivated it's a sexually motivated crime and we both believe that this perpetrator would not stop trying
to M to commit these sexual crimes to molest or rape young females so these could be gifts as part of the grooming
process mhm uh to other victims yeah I don't know how many times this offender has offended let's say but um I don't
believe this was his first attempt at doing so Amy was not his first attempt at doing so and if in fact he did not
intend to kill her and it went that way it went very wrong for him there is a chance be a very very small chance in my
opinion yeah that it was enough to scare him off of this for good but I I don't think that that's the situation I think
this individual probably attempted to offend again but making sure that they that murder wouldn't be the end result
so that is what was not found but there was an update about what was found at at
the place that she was uh left okay so this update took place June 23rd in 2016 I know you and I spoke about this
on mic somewhere right did we do that on off the record I believe so okay so let's go through this real quick on June
23rd 2016 Bay Village Police Chief Mark spel kyoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty
and FBI Agent Phil tney held a a press conference in which they presented neverbe seen evidence in hopes that it
could refresh someone's memory the evidence was a handmade curtain and blanket that had been discovered near
Amy's body when the items were tested for DNA or fingerprints canine hairs that matched Amy's dog Jake were found
on both items indicating that his hair the dog's hair had been transferred from Amy's clothing to the curtain and
blanket when Amy was found she had not been draped in either item leading investigators to believe that the
curtain and blanket had most likely come from the location where she was murdered
it is theorized that she may have been wrapped in them to conceal her body while her killer transported her to
County Road 1181 identifying the curtain and blanket could lead investigators to the scene
where she was killed at the same press conference it was also revealed that the reward fund for any information leading
to the arrest of Amy killer was now up to $50,000 now I think when we spoke on record or off the Record or wherever it
was yeah that I I expressed some anger and disappointment to the investigators and the investigation of Amy's abduction
and murder and I said that because I I was I was frustrated at the time I was happy to
learn about the new information but I was frustrated to learn that 26 years later hey does anybody know where this
curtain came from or this blanket came from because we now we we believe it's connected to her murder yeah and the
fact that they they were customade yes these are handmade items to me they actually look like they were an item
that served a purpose at one time and were uh repurposed repurposed reconfigured in a way to serve a
different purpose later and yes very likely if if they found uh hairs Amy's dogs hair on these items then they are
connected to Amy they are connected to her murder I do want to clear something up and this adds to the defense of law
enforcement and not to my own defense but I lat yeah screw you yeah screw you nick uh I later learned that the reason
why they waited so long to release this information is that for many many many of those years I don't know how long but
for a good majority of that time they did not know that they were connected to Amy right they were just found close to
her they were found close to her she wasn't found wrapped up in these items it wasn't obvious that they were
connected to her it was only through finding those hairs on these items that they were in fact connected to her and
to her case so but but that tells us something right because it tells us a lot but I I want to I kind want to go
through this just real quick before you jump in with that idea later when I was reviewing some of my stuff that I've
collected over the years on Amy's case I found newspaper clippings where the investigators that
responded to the call about the body being found in the field you can see pictures of them in the newspaper where
they are carrying trash bags full of items so again this is not through a lack of
effort on anyone's part in the investigation so I'm kind of slapping myself here for expressing some anger
toward that notion what they did was they collected just about any item that they found
within a half mile radius of her body this would have been every from PE you know from terrible worthless people that
throw trash out their car windows to cigarette butts beer cans beer bottles anything that was just flying around
flapping in the wind blowing around in that field out there they collected all of those items and the way that it works
is back then keep in mind this is ' 89 this is 1990 they can only they would had to send items off to the FBI for
testing and the FBI of course they're not the this is in its infancy this kind of Technology the FBI is saying you
can't send us a whole U-Haul truckload full of trash bags full of stuff that you found at the scene right we can't
test all that stuff send us what you think is connected first we'll test that we will come back to you with the
results then later you can send us some more and you can send us some more I actually I have heard this I obviously
obviously don't know if it's true or not but I believe that the curtain and or the blanket may have been found anywhere
from 100 ft to 100 yards away from her body so if if you just take the most simplest idea of investigating and
deducing what items are more likely to be connected to Amy than items that are less likely to be connected to her body
you start with the stuff that you find closest to her so you know I I'm just kind of I wanted to
to throw that out there to admit that I was wrong admit that I was wrong there I don't
know she had to be transported somehow and and that could have just been the murderer carrying
her but but back to my point there's not much there would be no sign of blood on
these curtains correct it does not appear to be that way and they've never stated so
if they did find blood on them or anything they thought to be blood they probably would have these items would
have been sent much earlier for testing so what this can tell us is okay the what we actually know here 100% is Amy's
body and or clothing came in contact with these two items at some point so she was either had either laid on them
been wrapped in them or concealed in them or all three at some point during the course in which she was held before
the body is placed in that field the thing is with there being no blood on it it it would Point more
towards that these items while they may have been in the general vicinity of where she was attacked and killed these
items likely were not applied to her body or clothing until the bleeding had stopped right to put it as you know
plain and simple as we can yeah or so I think it's it's likely that these two items were used for one or two
purposes one transporting the body and maybe concealing the body in the field because keep in mind if she
was out there for close to 100 days or about 100 days that body was not spotted by
anybody so these items are very makes me wonder because it it is a pretty open field at that point it it makes me
wonder I if if people actually saw this when they're driving by and they just didn't stop because it didn't look like
anything recognizable at the time or or or if she just wasn't out there that long well that's something
that we can really dive into uh in the next part here but that that is a good question that's something interesting to
think [Music] of and for our old episodes and off the Record episodes check out the Stitcher
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Amy Mihaljevic /// Part 1 /// 308

Part 1 of 2

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This week Nic and the Captain revisit one of Northeast Ohio’s coldest cases. Join us for an in-depth review and discussion of the abduction of 10 year old Amy Mihaljevic. Beer of the Week - Pink Drink by Hi-Wire Brewing Garage Grade - 3 & 3 Quarter Bottle Caps out of 5

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the abduction and murder of Amy Mahalic, detailing the timeline, investigation, and ongoing search for her killer.

Key points

The Day Amy Went Missing. On October 27, 1989, 10-year-old Amy Mahalic vanished after school, sparking a frantic search.
A Stranger's Approach. Witnesses reported seeing a man approach Amy outside an ice cream shop, leading her away.
A Mother's Instinct. Margaret Mahalic felt alarmed when Amy didn't come home and rushed to report her missing.
The Phone Call. Amy received a call from a man claiming to be a family friend before her disappearance.
Janet's Discovery. While jogging, Janet Seabold discovers a body in the mud, leading to a tragic revelation.
Autopsy Findings. The autopsy reveals Amy was brutally murdered, raising questions about the circumstances.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He placed his hand on Amy's back and led her away.

The moment Amy was taken.

5:18WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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